


Aggressive Mimicry

by janetcarter



Category: His Dark Materials (TV)
Genre: Angst, Denial, Gen, Motherhood, Reflection, set somewhere between lyra's time in london and bolvangar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26453602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janetcarter/pseuds/janetcarter
Summary: Marisa only wanted what was best for Lyra, but the girl fled before she could recognize she was better off by Mrs. Coulter's side.
Relationships: Lyra Belacqua & Marisa Coulter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 11





	Aggressive Mimicry

**Author's Note:**

> For the Hurt/Comfort Bingo prompt "Estrangement."

Once upon a time, Marisa believed that Lyra's departure would be a burden lifted. But the absence of a screaming infant left a loud silence and a deep hollowness instead of relief. She assumed it was because the whole incident had stripped her of the progress she had worked arduously to attain, and so she filled the emptiness with work. 

As a result, she had risen once again. And having finally gotten to know her child, and having begun smoothing out the imperfections of a decade's shaping, losing her felt like her very heart had been carved from her chest.

It was absurd, really. Lyra was the purest manifestation of sin, second only to Dust. Though free of disgrace by her own hand and not yet poisoned by age, her existence meant she would never escape the transgressions through which she had been created. Something so inherent could never be abandoned, whether she had been raised by Marisa, by the nunnery, or by Jordan. 

And yet Marisa still sought her out. Both then, when the Master agreed that Lyra would be better off in her care, and now with the spy flies sniffing her out. It was true that with Marisa, Lyra was on the path to a greatness that could bury the innate disadvantage of her existence. But whatever that journalist had said made Lyra flee as though Marisa were a monstrosity, teeth bared and claws pointed, tearing through the trust she'd worked so hard to forge. In reality, Marisa wasn't the monster at all.

When she'd manage to find Lyra, because she  _ would _ , it would take work to make her understand the truth. After all, when a spider weaves a web of golden silk, bees eagerly flock to what they believe is its pollen. Only when they are ensnared in its net do they recognize the danger hiding behind such promises. 

Marisa did not offer empty promises to Lyra, but she did not offer an easy rise to power, either. In what should have been a controlled process, Lyra instead recognized the web before Marisa could demonstrate the necessity of its existence. After all, predators are always waiting to snatch the spider up in sharp talons the moment it drops its guard. However, Lyra ran off before Marisa could explain she was far from a lowly insect. She had always intended to give Lyra the means to create a web of her own and to appreciate the efficiency of such tactics. For the threat was not aimed at  _ her: _ it was to anyone who dared harm her. 

But now she was gone. Despite whatever perceived truths Lyra might blabber to those who would listen, Marisa was hardly concerned with such things. She was concerned with something that terrified her much more than a young girl's tall tales. She was concerned with sewing her heart back beneath her ribs, which she could not do without Lyra as the thread. 

Or perhaps, she thought for a flicker, Lyra was the heart itself. 

A foolish notion, though Marisa did not laugh. She simply wished to elevate a young woman to power beyond the sexism flowing through every capillary of the Magisterium. Lyra, a child of her own flesh, would have been easier to mold than any other. Her potential was as radiant as the snow of the North. 

But now Marisa sat in the dark as her child lacked the camouflage necessary to defend her from all the world’s hawks. Her daemon stared at her with big eyes as though it sought out an explanation, or thought it could provide one through consolation. Marisa did not need her daemon to lean against her and wallow in shared pain. She needed to act, to move, to find her daughter. And she could not focus, could not be methodical, with an overly sensitive daemon at her side.

She clawed at his fur. As soon as her own wince transformed into a relieved sigh at the rush of endorphins, she swatted his whimpering form away.  _ Good.  _ Her daemon was a disgrace serving no other purpose beyond what she could take. He was a reminder of perverse thoughts and needs, of defiance in all the incorrect ways. 

Though the question did occur, for a brief moment, of why she cast him aside but clung to the same in a bastard child. Perhaps it was that Lyra, in all her rebellion, was something she could fix, _needed_ to fix, to ease the pain even distance from her daemon could not allow her escape. But it seemed as though the more she molded her daughter, the louder such pain burned even with her daemon out of sight. 

An odd conundrum; one she dared not think on too hard. For if she did, she might never find Lyra at all. 


End file.
